Free Winds of War by Herman Wouk Page A

Germany’s gut. Fifty crack divisions, spoiling for a scrap. The second biggest arms factory in the world. Russia and France ready at last to stand up and fight. All this, six months ago! And an Englishman, an Englishman , goes crawling across Europe to Hitler and hands him Czechoslovakia!” Tudsbury laughed mechanically and puffed at a cigarette made ragged by the breeze. “I don’t know. Maybe democracy isn’t for the industrial age. If it’s to survive, I think the Americans will have to put up the show.”
    “Why? Why do you keep saying that? On paper you and the French still have the Germans badly licked. Don’t you realize that? Manpower, firepower, steel, oil, coal, industrial plant, any way you add it up, They’ve got a small temporary lead in the air, but they’ve also got the Soviet Union at their backs. It’s not the walkover it was last year and two years ago, but you still figure to win.”
    “Alas, they’ve got the leadership.”
    A strong hand clapped Henry’s shoulder, and a voice tinged with irony said, “ Heil Hitler !” Ernst Grobke stood there in a worn, creased navy uniform; with it he had put on a severe face and an erect posture. “Well, gentlemen, here we are. Victor, in case I don’t see you again in the confusion, where do I get in touch with you? The embassy?”
    “Sure. Office of the Naval Attaché.”
    “Ah!” said Tudsbury. “Our little trip to Swinemünde? So glad you haven’t forgotten.”
    “I’ll do my best to include you,” said Grobke coldly. He shook hands with both of them, bowing and clicking his heels, and he left.
    “Come say good-bye to Pamela,” Tudsbury said. “She’s below, packing.”
    “I’ll do that.” Pug walked down the deck with the correspondent, who limped on a cane. “I have notions of matching her up with a son of mine.”
    “Oh, have you?” Tudsbury gave him a waggish glance through his thick spectacles. “I warn you, she’s a handful.”
    “What? Why, I’ve never met a gentler or pleasanter girl.”
    “Still waters,” said Tudsbury. “I warn you.”
     

Chapter 4
     
     
    The Henrys had only just arrived in Berlin when they were invited to meet Hitler. It was a rare piece of luck, the embassy people told them. Chancellery receptions big enough to include military attachés were none too common. The Führer was staying away from Berlin in order to damp down the war talk, but a visit of the Bulgarian prime minister had brought him back to the capital.
    While Commander Henry studied the protocol of Nazi receptions in moments snatched from his piled-up office work, Rhoda flew into a two-day frenzy over her clothing, and over her hair, which she asserted had been ruined forever by the imbecile hairdresser of the Adlon Hotel (Pug thought the hair looked more or less the same as always.) She had brought no dresses in the least suitable for a formal afternoon reception in the spring. Why hadn’t somebody warned her? Three hours before the event Rhoda was still whirling in an embassy car from one Berlin dress shop to another. She burst into their hotel room clad in a pink silk suit with gold buttons and a gold net blouse. “How’s this?” she barked. “Sally Forrest says Hitler likes pink.”
    “Perfect!” Her husband thought the suit was terrible, and decidedly big on Rhoda, but it was no time for truthtelling. “Gad, where did you ever find it?”
    Outside the hotel, long vertical red banners of almost transparent cheesecloth, with the black swastika in a white circle at their center, were swaying all along the breezy street, alternated with gaudy Bulgarian flags. The way to the chancellery was lined with more flags, a river of fluttering red, interspersed with dozens of Nazi standards in the style of Roman legion emblems - long poles topped by stylized gilt eagles perching on wreathed swastikas – and underneath, in place of the Roman SPQR, the letters NSDAP.
    “What on earth does NSDAP stand for?” Rhoda said, peering out